Why are the Babylon 5 scripts so expensive, and can I get them for cheaper?

July 20, 2009 9:45 PM

Over the course of 2005 or so, J Michael Straczynski released all the Babylon 5 scripts in fifteen volumes. Now the babylon5scripts website only sells the question and answer series, and ebay wants $150 for each volume! Are they rare now? Were they originally so expensive? Why? And most importantly, any way to get them for less?
posted by d. z. wang to Shopping (3 answers total)

I recall when I looked at them in late 2005 they were available solely as Print on Demand from Cafe Press and the initial prices were relatively high (but not $150, I think! I wish I could recall exactly but it was too long ago). Maybe $40-60 range? I recall you got a $10 discount if you ordered in the first week or so after release.

I would guess not a ton were produced (pushing $1000 for the whole set) and were mostly purchased by relatively die-hard fans who would be less likely to part with them.

It would pay to shop around as I see some of them on Amazon and private booksellers for in the 30-70 dollar range, but not much below that and some don't seem to show up much cheaper than $100+.
posted by nanojath at 10:16 PM on July 20, 2009

I believe they were originally $40, with a $10 off discount in the first week. I bought the first four or five before deciding that I really couldn't afford to keep up with them. And now they're gathering dust on my shelf. Sad.

They were promising that the big gimmick was that the last volume, 15, would be a whole bunch of unreleased material. And that they would tell you what the story arc, the original arc with Sinclair, would have been the whole way through. And, naturally, that the last volume would only be available to people who had bought all the other books. That could explain some of the crazy pricing on the books, if it's the last book you're looking for.

Man, I wish they'd been printed by a real publisher, or at least none of this time-limited stuff...
posted by sineala at 1:41 AM on July 21, 2009

Why are they so expensive? Law of supply and demand. The small number of people who want them is slightly larger than the small number that were printed.

How can you get them cheaper? Do you want them to keep, or do you just want to read them? Because I bet someone who owns them would "rent" them to you if you and they could work out an arrangement.
posted by Sidhedevil at 7:42 AM on July 21, 2009